The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-19
THE GRANDE CHARTREUsE.
Whatsthe Carthusian Monks Though
of the Queen of England,

Vi Luo queen Oh GQBlttnu.
A Carthusian monk writes this to the Pail
NaH Gazette: The following extract from
the letter of Carthusian monk to his niece
in Scotland, relative to the recent visit of
the queen to La Grande Chartreuse, has
been contributed to the columns of an even
ing paper This monk is writing from an
other ChartreuSe, but as his prior was at the
Grand Chartreuse when the queen visited
1t, he is able to give the local view of the
royal visit:
"As you derive some pleasure from little
scraps of information about Her Majesty
the Queen, l feel no small degree of salts
faction in being able to tell you that have
just learned all the particulars about the
royal visit to the Grande ChartreuSe, and so
that singular event will form the subject of
the present letter. From what you told me
In your last letter, see very well that the
substance of all that has been said by the
journals about the royal visit may be very
accurately reduced to two simple points.
First, in order to receive her majesty, the
rules of the order were laid aside; and,
second, the queen refused to partalle of the
hospitality that was humbly offered to her.
There is not so much as a single word of
truth in either the one or the other of these
two statements. They are both false-en-
tirely false.
From the days of ST. Benedict such a
thing as monastic rule about the admission
into, or the exclusion from, clustered mon
aSteries of either sex, has never been heard
of in the Catholic world. There is and al
ways has been lava general lava law
made not by either monks or nuns, but by a
general council of the church of God, about
that very important matter. The law for
bids, under pain of accommodation, the
admission of men into the converts of clois-
tered nuns, and the admission of women in
to the monasterieS of monks who live Sc
cluded from the world. But the law very
expressly excerpts both bishops and crowned
heads. No doubt when the law was made
the person of both kings and queens were
sacred. Then all: of them were Catholic,
a good number of them were saints, and the
possibility of ever beholding anywhere in
Europe, such monster as hereto king or
a hereto queen, was never dreamed of. The
religious revolution of the sixteenth century
gave birth to more than one Of these mon
sterS, but their appearance i'll Christendom
made no change in the law Its letter and
its spirit has always remained, and will
always remain what it was in the ages of
faith.
1T is quite true, then, that the foot of an
ordinary woman, or of an ordinary lady
has never crossed the threshold of the en-
VI dhCC SdOC VI Ult Duu
during the last 800 years a great number of
queens have visited and dined in the grand
old monastery. The daughter and success
Sor of the renown Gustavus Adolphus, was
one of them; Christine of Sweden, was re-
ceived into it just short time before she
abdicated the crown and adjured Protestan-
tism, and became a fervent child of the
Catholi C church. No rule, therefore, was
violated, no custom was momentarily for
l. G
her Britannia Majesty. Queen Victoria had
perfect legal right to be admitted into the
old cloisters and to be conducted through
all the cells, and to be shown everything
which she wished to see from the top to the
bottom of the aged pile But to be received
into clustered converts, kings must be act
ually reigning; and to be admitted into
monasterieS of the same kind, queens must
be actually reigniDg; so that were her mai
esty of England to abdicate tomorrow, and
knock just the next day at the old gate of
La Grande Chartreuse, or that of any of
the houses of the order, she would not be al
lowed to cross the threshold of any of them.
When either kings or queens cease to reign
they fall into the category of private per-
sons, and they are rigidly excluded Such
is the law. 1t never has been, and never
will be changed.
Her majesty remained in the monastery
about four hours. She did not dine, be-
cause no notice of her visit had been sent
beforehand to the father-general, and so
there was no time for preparing a dinner
for the royal party. But the modest queen
partook very heartily of a collation., which
was composed of chocolate, biscuits, jellies
and confectioneries of various kinds. She
did more than that She inquired of the
reverend father if any of her good people
from any of the three kingdoms were among
his children of the Grande Chartreuse; and
having learned that there was young and
amiable Englishman actually in the convent,
she at once expressed a strong wish TO visit
him in his own cell. Il do not now the
family name of the young man, but he is q
convert, an the son of an English Protes-
tant clergyman.) Her ma iesty's wish was
forthwith gratifed. The father-general was
her pilot through the obscure windings of
the cloisters. The young son of St. Bruno
received his sovereign with great ease
modesty and politeness. The good queen
straw chair close by him, and chartered
materially for nearly half an hour. She
piously recommended both herself and her
faithful subjects to his good prayers; and
she was so highly pleased with his edifying
conversation that she went the length of
requesting him to give her little souvenir
which would enable her, after her return to
England to recall to her mind the pleasure
she derived from her visit to him and the
Grand Chartreuse. He was the first Eng
lish clustered monk to whom her majesty
had ever opened her royal lips. The young
son of ST. Bruno at once presented to her
small silver cruifix of very ancient date
and very fine workmanship. 1t was the
only thing of any value that he had in his
cell. The Queen did not kiss the image of
her crucjfied Redeemer, but she gracefully
accepted it, placed it carefully in one of her
pockets, very atfectionately hade farewell
to the young convert and in a very
short time atterward she departed from
the venerable cradle of the Carthusian
order.
81 received the knowledge of these little
facts and circumstances from the lips of our
own father, who has just returned from the
chapter-general of the order, which is an
nually held at the Grande Chartreuse. They
were communicated to him by the father
general, and SO about their exactness and
gertrude no room is left for the entertain
ing even the shadow of doubt"